Kawhi Leonard and the Toronto Raptors are looking to bounce back from their loss to the Golden State Warriors in Game 2 of the NBA Finals. While we’re sure Kawhi’s main focus is on winning the championship, the Raptors star player has off-court problems that may cause distraction.
Kawhi has filed a lawsuit against Nike, who Leonard previously had an endorsement deal with before signing with New Balance late last year. The lawsuit says that Nike committed fraud when they filed a copyright claim to ownership of the “Klaw” logo.
Kawhi claims he designed the logo in 2011, when he was first drafted to the NBA, and gave permission to Nike to use the logo on Kawhi-branded merchandise. Now that Kawhi’s Nike deal is over, Leonard intends to use the logo on other merchandise, as well as in connection with sports camps and charity functions, but Nike explicitly has objected to such uses.
You can read the entirety of the lawsuit on Scribd. Hopefully Kawhi can regain control of his logo and go back to being the usual fun guy that he is.
